Wondering if teaching English remotely is right for you? We’re big fans of teaching online, and working remotely in general, as it allowed us to fund our travels around the world. But what if you’re not traveling and just teaching from home? We’ve done that too!
Let’s be honest, there are negatives too. For example, taxes are not taken out of your paycheck and so you will likely owe come tax season.
7 Benefits of Teaching English Remotely
Flexible hours
The routineness of a 9 to 5 gig (or more likely 8 to 5 for most) doesn’t allow for a lot of flexibility in your day. But when you teach English remotely, you have A LOT of flexibility. In most cases for online teachers, the students are located in Asia, most notably China. Since that’s the case, the hours for teaching remotely are drastically different from “normal” work time hours for most people.
For example, we teach English remotely every morning (except Sundays) from about 4:30 am to around 8:00 am during Daylight Savings Time. While that’s early for us teachers, it’s in the evening for our students. They’ve already been to school, had dinner and then practice their English with you in the evening. It’s always a very busy day for them!
So whether you’re teaching English as a side gig for some awesome extra income or this is your job while you’re in a transition period (between jobs or raising children), you have a lot of flexibility with teaching remotely!
The best part about the working hours? You’re up early, done early and then the rest of the day is yours!
Supplemental Income
As we just briefly mentioned, teaching English remotely can create some amazing additional income. We currently make around $20 USD for 40 minutes of work. Granted, we should really say “work” because talking and laughing with kids doesn’t really feel like a job!
If you’re working full-time right now but have a big expense coming up (vacation, school, medical, etc.) and you’re on the hunt for some extra income, teaching English remotely from the comfort of your home is a great idea!
While teaching English online may not be the best source of main income for you and yours, the money earned can go a lot further than you think. For instance, we traveled around Asia and Europe for 18 months and taught English online during the entire adventure.
We taught even fewer classes than we did now, but those classes funded every bit of our travels. Teaching even helped us put some money back into savings while going from place to place. So if we can manage to rent Airbnbs around the globe, buy transportation tickets, eat out and pay off student loans while just teaching English remotely, you can do quite well for yourself too!
English Online is Growing
With a quickly growing market in Southeast Asia and an already saturated market in China, there are so many companies out there who are hiring teachers. In fact, most companies hire year-round. The high turnaround is due to many teachers who just work temporarily for the extra income and then move on to something else.
As the world becomes more connected, the more English learners there will be. Children make up most of the student population but there are emerging companies out there for adults too.
Check out our short but sweet list of companies for teaching English online! Is a degree required? What’s the pay? What are the hours like? We answer those questions!
We currently work for SayABC and have done so for almost two years. It has been an awesome experience to watch these kids greatly improve their English over the many months we’ve been together. Check out our SayABC review to see if it’s right for you!
It’s a Lot of Fun
One of the simplest yet most important benefits to teaching remotely is the amount of fun you can have.
But at first it wasn’t!
Like other jobs, there are some growing pains. For us, in the beginning, it was more about adjusting to the process of how teaching online works. But once we got the hang of things and some time had passed, we became much more comfortable with our students. And from then on it’s been a lot of fun!
To add to the fun, filling your class with props (puppets, whiteboards, flashcards) will keep your students engaged and more entertained. Even if you don’t have a puppet (we don’t!), a stuffed animal can do wonders for the class. For example, there’s a class with two students who now always bring their stuffed animals to class and speak English through their cotton-filled pets. Their English has greatly improved since this began!
So, the more real-life props you can add to the mix, the more fun the students will have and most importantly, the more they’ll learn.
The Freedom to Travel
Our favorite part about teaching remotely? The freedom to travel! We’ve talked a little about it already in this post but we want to emphasize how awesome this benefit is!
Without the ability to teach remotely, we never would have gone from country to country for 18 months. As long as we had a stable internet connection (which can be pretty difficult in some places!) we were able to work. Granted, you can’t work on the beach when you teach English remotely. If you know of a company that allows that then let us know!
We work for SayABC and like most companies, they require a clean, educational and quiet environment. So, as long as you’ve got the internet and a good setup, you can teach! Therefore, the world (almost all of it) is yours to explore!
If you’re interested in packing your essentials in a backpack or two and being a nomad then you’ve come to the right place. Read up on our tips for teaching English online and traveling before you set off.
It Can Open New Avenues
This benefit could be applied to any job but we want to state it anyway because teaching remotely opened a whole new avenue for us.
As we’ve stated, it allowed us to travel the world for a long time. However, during that time abroad, we explored remote work even further by creating this blog, providing tips and guides for traveling and also giving some pointers on teaching.
Had we never had the courage to leave the States and try it out then we wouldn’t be writing this. So, whether you’re going to teach remotely from home or from another country, you may find yourself seeking a new career path down the road. We certainly did!
It’s Handy During a Pandemic
Writing this article during the Covid-19 pandemic, we’re pretty thankful that we have these remote jobs to sustain us through difficult times.
When China became heavily affected by the virus and students were ordered to stay home, our jobs didn’t change. In fact, they became more stable. So, in this strange current situation we live in, there’s another, albeit rare, benefit to teaching English remotely.
Summary of Benefits of Teaching English Remotely
For those who are seriously considering teaching english remotely, we hope we’ve covered the positives of doing so. However, like anything else, there are some bad with the good. That said, the cons of teaching remotely come nowhere near to beating the benefits.
If you have any questions about teaching online, whether at home or abroad, don’t hesitate to leave a comment or contact us!
Happy teaching!
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